After conducting an internal review of the ‘Nauru files’, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection stated that ‘the contention that [the files] represent “thousands” of cases of abuse … cannot be supported’. The department’s review concluded that 23 of the 2123 leaked incident reports related to ‘critical’ incidents, 281 related to ‘major’ incidents and 1819 related to ‘minor’ or ‘unclassified’ incidents.
Immigration minister Peter Dutton claimed that 22 Syrians whose applications for refugee resettlement in Australia were rejected for suspected terrorist links ‘may well have slipped through the net’ if processing had been rushed. Dutton has consistently stated that his priority in resettling refugees is the ‘security of our country’.